1000 Paper Cranes
by Ava Addemdum
Summary: Now he's gone, gone like a desert wind." "If you are telling me to move on, to leave my past behind, then tell me how to forget ones I held so dear. Tell me how..." One-shot SetoYami


Disclaimer: Do you think I would be writing a story that affronts YuGiOh with its very existence if it had been mine?

It's raining. I'm bored and if you add the two and two together, you get a bad story. (Not that it'll be any better if the conditions above are the exact opposite...but hey!)

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**Paper Cranes**

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28th of August

The hospital always reminded him of graves; patients there were whether dead or on their ways to it. The only differences were there were always people around, dressed in white, gliding like shadows across the laminated white tills. Everything was white, white, white and white.

Inside of room N.111, he looked out the jalousie and watched the morning Domino. The crowds, like ants, busied themselves in their schedules. The cars, chained onto each other; a never ending string. All this happened as a mime. _Where did the sounds go?_ Yami wondered to himself. He was sure there used to be life packed within that city, or was it those thick windows that isolated him out of normality?

He signed. What should have been a whisper sliced through the morose silence. He stared into space,allowing the blond bangs to fall around his eyes. He simply sat and gazed. As if listening intently to the dust molecules caught in the sifted light rays.

"Hey Yami!" The door creaked opened. A blond head popped from behind. It towed a series of shushing behind it. The visitor glared around to his companions who were yet to make their appearances.

Jounouichi walked in, his bright hair contrasting strongly with the dull surroundings. "Uh, Yami,"with a lowertone this time, the blond teen fiddled with his schoool jacket,"we're going to Kaiba Land today, ter play some games and... ya know...Since you seemed fine these days, we wondered if you'd like to come," he let his voice trail away with amix of expression upon his face. The others ambled through with a bouquet of vibrant flowers.

Doleful eyes darkened. With a smile plastered on his elegant features, the former pharaoh turned: "No thank you. You guys go ahead. I will be fine."

The group exchanged glances, heavy silence hung in the Jaborandi scented air. Jounouichi bit his lower lip.

Then, the counterfeit cheeriness corrupted.

"Snap outa it Yami!" He growled with a burst ofbitter reprimand. "He's dead! He ain't coming back!"

Eyes widened. Angry footsteps hustled down the hall.

Honda and Yugi grabbed onto the sleeves of the irritated teen, giving fleeting looks to the person on the receiving end of such wrath. His face looked surprisingly impassive.

"What are you doing Jou?" The usuallyoptimistic girl whispered savagely. "Yami's sick, can't you tell?" She then aimed her sincere apologies to the medical staffs that blocked the exit. The doctor's eyes were obscured by the highly reflective glasses. The nurses glared daggers at them.

After a contest of staring, the white robed ones turned on their heels and stalked out to where ever they came from.

_Click, click, click_

Once again, impenetrable silence muted the scene.

"I am sorry Jounouichi. I can not go," Yami's voice could barely be heard over the loud stillness. With that, he transformed back into an alabaster statue before the whole scenario began.

The group stood there, unsure where to look. Jounouichi puffed with leftover rage.

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I know he is gone. I knew that. I already knew that.

Why do they have to remind me so?

_Why, why, why?_

I do not wish to accept, childish as it is. I do not wish to accept the facts.

I can still feel his warmth in the death of the night, I could have sworn that he rose from the graves and was lurking in the shadows. I can still hear his voice, calling out to me; calling my name.

After five millennia, we finally found each other again. We managed to discover ourselves in each other's embrace in a different body, in a different epoch and in a different world. But we knew we had the same ancient soul which attracted in our past life. The familiarity sparkled and rejoined.

Now he is gone. Gone like the desert wind.

I was the mighty but lonely Sahara and he was the wind that blew and stirred me countless times.

When I thought we could finally have what you called "a happy ending", I lost him. Was it my fault that I was being too idealistic? I am not ashamed to admit that I seek Platonic love.

How am I going to accept the fact that I have already lost him twice? And this time, I have to spend my whole life without him.

If you are telling me to move on; to leave my past behind me, then tell me how to forget someone you held so dear. Tell me how...

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1st of September

The telephone rang on the marble bedside table, shamelessly highlighting itself. Yami let the phone screeched its device out before reaching for the receiver, slowly, taking his time. One of his well-shaped eyebrows lifted a faction when he realised the connection was still alive when he picked it up.

"Yami, I'm going over this afternoon," the soft female voicewas audibleoverthe phone, and paused hesitatingly, "Do you want me to bring you anything?"

A ghost of a smile fled past the tri-coloured hair teen's lips. "If that wouldn't be too much of a bother...would you please bring me some balloons and origami paper?"

"Sure thing. I'll see you at three then?" Yami could picture the tender beam on the cheerleader's face.

"Yes," he closed his eyes as warm current rose within his chest,"And thanks...Anzu..."

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_Tap, tap, tap._

Light knockings.

"Enter." The traits of a pharaoh still lingered in him.

Anzu, clad in her pink uniform, slid in.

A bird soared across the autumn sky; sailed across the lonely window of Yami's room on top of the hospital.Casting a brief reflection.

Yami, drifted back from the land of reveries, focused.

"Well...here's the things that you want," she dropped the plastic bag at the foot of the bed and plopped herself down. "So," she breathed deeply,"how are you?"

Seeing the seriousness of that last sentence, Yami endeavoured to come up with something other then a shrug.

"I am fine."And moved towards the abandoned bag.

Anzu picked it up and placed it in front of him.

"Thanks," he murmured.

He reached in, fingering the contents. Rustling of plastic could be heard with his every move.

"Yami, when is your operation?" She asked almost casually, nibbling at her lips, as if she has become accustomed to these things.

A shrug. He wondered why she wasn't doing her usual "Joie de vivre" speech.

"When they can find a suitable organ to replace it," he answered.

The brunettestudied the former duel monster champion as he folded a piece of origami paper into a neat triangle.

She missed the self-assured aura that radiated off the slender form and gave everyone else around him strength; She missed the infatuating smirk that he was prone to wear when he was about to doom his opponent. Most of all, she missed Yami, the strong one before all of this happened. The one that they acquainted in the Duellist Kingdom, the one they got to know in the Battle City Tournament, and the one they befriended with in the Ancient Egypt Arc.

Anzu tried to think back to the reason that caused the fall. Her eyes still remained on Yami's concentrated movements. It came suddenly, she recalled, and remained impalpable for a period of time. Until one day, all his miseries and grieves buoyed up and smacked him in the face.

"Do you want the operation?" She blurted out.

Yami's fluid motion froze. Theair currentslowed and became stagnant.

Anzu's mind went into overdrive. Her teeth were practically bearing through her lower lip. Sensing her panick, Yami went back to tidying the corner of the paper triangle in his hand, "No. Not really."

Her heart sank.

"Yami, don't. Don't do this," she pleaded, blue eyes glistering, "please! Your heart is ill!"

The teen continued with his previous actions, acting like he hasn't heard her. With nimble fingers, he folded the paper back and forward.With ashift twist,a delicatebeak formed on the creature.It was a crane.

She reached out, exasperated, placing her hands over Yami's skeletal ones. She whimpered when she felt the iciness against her skin. Driven by the will to make her friend better, she exclaimed:

"I will give you my heart for the operation!" Voice came out thick with emotions, "Use mine! I hate seeing you like this!" her grip tightened, tears spilling down her blushed cheeks.

His wan lips curved into a slack angle. He gave her hand a loose squeeze.

"Anzu, don't be foolish. You have a great future ahead of you; you have a dream--being a dancer," Yami leaned back on the fluffed pillows, still looking ahead, as if searching for a invisible smudge on the mono-coloured walls, "but my dream is to reunite with Seto. So in a way, dieing is the fulfilment of my dream."

For the rest of her visit, they just sat there in utter silence; one had been saddened by those words, while one had, at last, figured out the solution to all his musings.

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I have folded 995 paper cranes, I longed for the day when I can reach 1000. Yugi once told me that if one folded 1000 paper cranes and wishes upon it, their wishes will come true. I didn't believe it of course; the only magic or spells I believed in are the ones that extinguished over a few centuries ago. But I suppose the thought had always stored in the back of my mind.

What would you say Seto? You would probably snort and tease me about believing in such immature myths.

I also blew a whole pack of balloons, all 20 of them. Right now, my ward is in a ridiculous state, like a toddler's party, with balloons and coloured paper scattering everywhere.

That will not last long.

Because I am planning to set those balloons free. One by one, let them have the freedom I can no longer have. Let them carry all my love that traced back into Ancient Egypt.

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5th of September (night)

The pale moonlight shone through the half opened windows, sigh of breezes nudged the half translucent curtains.

_Flip, flip, flip._

The weak lunatic glow only managed to fend off a small portion of shadows; blankets of it still sulked in the corners and the blind angles of the illumination. One would think they walked in on a black and white movie if it wasn't for the exotic haired boy that was curled into a small ball in the blankets, the colourful origami that lied next to him and the faint redmarks on his weary fingers.

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19th of September

That was the day of Yami's heart transplant operation.

Yugi pursed his lips as he read the aloof words on the medical records.

---Symptom: inadequate heart activities caused by long-term stress.

---Treatment: Medication. If severe, an operation (heart transplant) will be recommended.

His fingers grasped hard at thefilmsy piece of paper.

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Yami lifted his arms with effort, it was a relief that he had finished his paper crane a few days before. His arms were weighted down by the large amount of needles sticking into his skin. Skin stretched over wire; that was what he was.

He picked up a jade green balloon, and used his teeth to pull lose the cap of a vivid. He exhaled a long, ragged breath before dragging dark lines across the elastic surface, biting his tongue as he did so.

_I miss you._

The former pharaoh stroked the thick writings in satisfaction. He edged, on his bed, closer to the window pane and slumped against it.

Slowly,he let the balloon go.

One by one, multi-coloured balloons flew out from his window, each carrying a small message. The passer-bys exclaimed in excitement, pointing at the unusual sight.

He was about to release some more of his messenger when an alien wave of feelings washed over him.

Drowning him with its present. Smothering and blocking his wind-pipes with its unexplainable familiarities.

He looked around frantically, trying to find the source of it.

He felt something brushed against him. Something soft and smooth as silk. Something that was much similar to feathers.

He threw himself around, his stomach did a twist. Wine red eyes widened.

Seto.

There he floated, the object of his sorrow of late, outside his window, just out of an arm's reach.

His form was translucent; one has to squint to make out the colours. And one could see freely through the other side. He could see every detail of the building behind him.

Yami blinked, doubting his eyes.

"Seto?" He croaked, "Is that you?"

The handsome face looked at him fondly.

"Yes. It is me Yami," the brunette's face was washed over by grief. "But I am no longer in my physical form. I have no hope in keep my oath to you."

Single crystal tear slid from his thickly lashed orbs and trailed down his face. Too long has he suppressed those tears, too long has he masked his emotions. His petite body shook with the erupted sentiments. His mouth worked silently over unformed words.

"Don't...leave me..." The words came out short and desperate.

Seto's arms were wide opened and welcoming.

He was going to take him somewhere where there is no pain, no worries, and no sorrows; where they could be together till the dawn of eternity. Yami was sure.

He stood up with unsteady legs, feet sank into the plump mattress. Hetore the needles out of his arms.

_Clink, clink, clink._

The needles collided with the ground with clear clatters, metal against marble. Free of the entanglements of the tubes, he limped towards the opened window.

He opened his arms.

He secured them around his neck.

He fell noiselessly towards the ground.

_Down, down, down..._

The bright paper cranes lied beside his pillow, shivering in the wind...

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Anzu pushed opened the door that was left ajar to encourage her friend.

She was greeted by an empty bed, and blankets that were tepid.

She shifted her attention onto the intravenous drip needles that scattered on the floor. Her eyescleared with comprehension.

The girl didn't remember how long sheremained standingthere, just staring at the tubes that represented Yami's life; goingaround incircles, around and around, everything were made complicated. In the end it just stopped...all the miseries, everything.

She shuffled to the bed and picked up the uncapped vivid in one hand and a royal purple balloon in the other. Her manicured fingernails scrapping slightly against the face, she printed:

_Hope you've found your happiness._

She watched the balloon disappeared into the distance with genuine blessings.

-------------------**OWARI**----------------------

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**Authoresses drabble:** That was THE longest chapter I have ever done.

Oh yeah, "Joie de vivre" is French for "Joy of Living".

Tell me what you think about it. Thanks.


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